Try guessing the world record speed of a boat under sail. How fast can a wind-propelled vessel go without assistance from a motor? For the sake of mental comparison, think of walking speed, which is generally 2 to 3 mph. A fast walker might do 4 mph. Most people don’t jog faster than 6 mph. Double that and you’re on a traditional Atlantic racing yacht. The theoretical maximum speed of one I crewed on in the 1970s was nearly 12 knots, about 14 mph. That’s bracingly brisk when you’re on board 45 tons out in the ocean.
But none of those comparisons comes close to what we’re talking about today. In 2012, a weird-looking catamaran called the Vestas Sailrocket 2 set the world record after turning north along the Namibian coast. It shot over the surface of the Atlantic at an average of 65.45 knots. That’s 75 mph. At one point, it topped 78 mph, the sort of speed that prompts out-of-temper state troopers to ticket you on the interstate. If you find sheer scintillating velocity thrilling, watch the Sailrocket’s final run.
Sailing has been radically transformed since I caught the bug as an early teenager in 1970. That summer, when I was learning to plane in a sailing dingy, big, sleek sloops were racing off Newport, Rhode Island, to see who’d defend the America’s Cup, which the New York Yacht Club had won against global competition again and again without interruption for the previous 119 years. The trophy became known as the America’s Cup because no one could take it away from the Americans.
But that was then, and this is now. Australia, in 1983, became the first non-American boat to win. Controversy over its winged keel led to a period when designs went haywire and totally different types of boats raced each other uselessly. A little American catamaran beat a 90-foot New Zealand monster off San Diego in the 1988 final. Teams spent most of their time in court wrangling over the rules. To prevent a repeat of that fiasco, uniformity was reimposed, but with a completely new class of boats. On March 6 this year, the latest America’s Cup finals will start off Auckland, New Zealand, where the defending hosts are challenged by Italy. Both will be racing AC75s.
These “boats” are a lot closer to the Sailrocket than to the elegant yachts of yesteryear. Like the world record holder, they lift entirely out of the water on hydrofoils, one on each side amidships, as long as the wind is 10 mph or more. Usually, only one foil is in the water, with the other hanging in the air to reduce drag. The only other part of the boat that is submerged is the rudder, which is extra long so it can reach down from the elevated stern and steer. Thus, a 75-foot boat weighing nearly 8.5 tons surges out of the water, balances on one leg, and moves at three times the speed of the wind. When these boats are up and flying, they really — fly. They’ve been recorded at 49 knots, or 56 mph, and New Zealand’s team claims to have topped 50 knots.
When tacking, they lower one foil and raise the other, looking similar to those desert lizards that avoid burning their feet by lifting them alternately off the scorching sand. But these are not land lizards. They are marine predators. With their black hulls and black triangular sails shooting over the water, they look like a velociraptor crossed with a shark fin. The sails carve the air like blades, hardly changing position whether they’re running, reaching, or close hauling. The sails are really wings, not old-fashioned canvas buckets to catch the wind. You’ll never see a spinnaker on one of these.
Sadly, the United States’s dominance of what is still called the America’s Cup is as distant a memory as recollections of elegant J-class yachts. The New York Yacht Club entered a boat, American Magic, in the early round-robin heats, but it capsized, ripped a hole in the hull, and nearly sank. It was fixed up (with a couple of bandages cutely painted over the repaired section), but it could never recover its lost confidence and lost time (to make adjustments), and it was laconically nicknamed American Tragic before getting walloped by the Italians. The Italians, in the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, also unexpectedly trounced the British boat in the semi-finals even though Ineos Team UK had beaten them every time in the round-robin. On March 6, Luna Rossa takes on Emirates Team New Zealand — the name tells you where the money comes from — in the best-of-13-races final.
The big question is whether the defending New Zealanders have the advantage because they had weeks to practice and tune up their boat while waiting to see who would challenge them. Or will it be the Italians, who are battle-hardened by racing competitively throughout the past two months? Luna Rossa certainly got faster as the competition progressed, which was why it could easily win the semi-finals against a team that beat it handily before going on a two-week hiatus.
Some sailing purists complain that the AC75 races aren’t exciting because sheer speed eclipses canny tactics, and the races are sprints, only lasting 20 minutes. There is some truth in this. But the America’s Cup still pits the best race sailors in the world against each other, and they still dog each other, for example trying to force opponents to luff up and fall off their foils sluggishly onto their hulls. And then there are those supreme moments when these vast black scalpel blades are skimming over the blue of the southern Pacific, leaving motorboats floundering in their wake. If that doesn’t make your heart race at least a bit, you should check whether it is still beating.
Hugo Gurdon is editor-in-chief of the Washington Examiner.
